Vow of Silence
by drey'auc475
Summary: He never screams anymore. Even when the dreams are bad – the worst – he never makes a sound. Sheppard Centric OneShot - inspired a little by Inception.


**Title:** Vow of Silence  
**Author:** Drey'auc475  
**STARGATE: ATLATIS  
****Rating:** K+ - T  
**Spoilers:** Ep. 404 – Doppelganger & 515 – Remnants  
**Genre:** Angst/Hurt/Comfort – with a little bit of romance  
**Setting/Season:** Set season 5 in general  
**Summary: **He never screams anymore. Even when the dreams are bad – the worst – he never makes a sound.  
**A/N: **This is something I wrote at work today (yeah, just proof as to how much I go unsupervised). The idea came to me while Beta-ing another story. I also think this is just proof I have been reading too many _Inception_ fanfics. Someone please tell me if that's a bad thing.

-XXX-

He never screams any more.

Even when the dreams are bad – the worst – he never makes a sound.

It's not that he sees is as a weakness, it's just that he doesn't want to wake his teammates and burden them with his troubles. He's learnt to deal with things in his own way, in his own time. The last person to comfort him was his mother. But she's long gone now.

Maybe it is weakness. But he has to be strong for his team. Hell, for all his people, because they're facing terrible horrors daily, and they're all looking to him to lead them.

The thought used to scare him – wake him up in the middle of the night, regretting his decision to come to this mystical city. But he never makes a sound.

It's harder for him to keep it from his team when they're in the field. He's sure they know; but they never say anything. They understand him. They know he doesn't want to talk about it.

Even when everyone was having nightmares about him, they didn't talk about it. That night he had his own nightmares – about killing everyone he cared about with his own hands. Even then, he didn't make a sound.

He's lost so many people in this line of work, and at the end of bad days – the worst missions – he's afraid to sleep, because he knows he'll see their faces – every single one. He says their names in his head – because he can't help it – as he drifts to sleep. And as he dreams, they're all there, waiting to tear him apart.

He wakes; shaking, panting, sweating, but he doesn't scream. It's caught in his throat like always, but he never lets himself release it.

So he runs. Through the sleeping city, the quiet, unpopulated areas. It's three in the morning and he's exhausted from the mission but he doesn't care. As long as it takes his mind off of it for a while.

But it's always there, whenever he closes his eyes. It's not so bad after good missions, but those are few and far between these days.

It's the incident on Mainland of the new planet that breaks his silence. He felt he held it together rather well after he came back to his senses and found himself hanging off a cliff with his arm whole again. That night, after the excitement dies down, he relives the torture in his own head. But it's not Kolya who beats him and cuts his hand off – it's himself.

He starts awake; his arm is bent awkwardly behind him and he hears a strangled sob in his normally quiet room. It's a long moment before he realises it was him that made the noise. It's only a small noise, barely audible but somehow very loud to his ears.

For some reason this shakes him. He's broken his self-imposed vow of silence. But no one is there to hear it – so he rationalises that it never happened. Lying back down on his tiny bed with its thin mattress he tries to get comfortable and fall asleep. But the dream keeps replaying in his head. And soon he's forced out of his bed for another of his night-time runs.

The time it happens for real, _she's_ with him. They're back in Colorado Springs because everyone has gone to visit families and friends and the city is too empty to stay there right now. She finds him wandering the halls late at night, long after everyone has gone to bed. They walk together for a while, talking in hushed voices. He barely remembers how they both end up in his quarters, but she's there when he wakes, wrestling sheets, covered in sweat, a cry of horror on his lips.

The look she gives him makes him cringe away, but she tells him she understands, and perhaps that's the worst part. She tells him in that calm manner of hers that it's not something he shouldn't be afraid of. He argues with her and she simply tells him he's a fool.

He supposes it doesn't really matter so much that his vow of silence truly is broken. It feels too good to have someone comforting him again.

Now he doesn't know how he can ever go back.

-XXX-

**A/N:** I, personally, think the ending for this is a little weak. If anyone has any ideas, or wishes to Beta it, shoot me a PM.

Also, _she _can be whomever you like. In my head, she can only be Teyla. But I suppose anyone else works too.

**Thanks for reading!**


End file.
